(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for a lawful interception of Internet services.
b) Description of the Related Art
A lawful interception indicates a behavior of lawfully intercepting, by means of a law enforcement agency granted with a legal right, a communication traffic occurring from any target or transferred to the target. In this instance, the lawful interception may need cooperation of a communication service provider. Particularly, the United States congress has passed and been operating a Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), enabling the communication service provider to cooperate with the lawful interception.
Using the Internet, an e-mail service, a web-based information service, e-commerce, a broadcasting service, a telephone service, and the like have been generalized. In addition, Internet application service providers providing various types of services using the Internet are also increasing. Accordingly, lawful interception technology may need to expand its scope to monitor servers of all the service providers connected to the Internet, beyond monitoring only a path for connection to the Internet that is an interception target.
A method of lawfully intercepting a router or a gateway of an Internet access service provider providing a line for a user to access the Internet, or a method of lawfully intercepting a communication traffic transferred via a server of an Internet application service provider providing various types of services via the Internet, such as an e-mail service, a web-based information service, e-commerce, a broadcasting service, and a telephone service, may be classified into a passive method and an active method.
The passive method denotes a scheme that may filter only a communication line associated with a router or a gateway of an Internet access service provider connected by a corresponding user, or only communication data and communication connection information associated with a router or a gateway of an Internet access service provider connected with a server of an Internet application service provider, and may transfer the filtered information to a law enforcement agency.
The active method denotes a scheme that may filter only communication data and communication connection information associated with an interception target among communication packets processed directly by unifying and thereby operating an interception function included in the router or the gateway of the Internet access service provider and the server of the Internet application service provider, and may transfer the filtered information to the law enforcement agency.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.